*Tweet: From those who said: ‘You can’t vote’. Fascist salute at the Parliament, cries of ‘Long live Spain!’. Invited by the PP – MP David Fernàndez

A group of Spanish unionist activists has been expelled from the visitor’s stand at the Catalan parliament after they kept interrupting the session with cheers to the anti-referendum parties and loudly mocking the pro-independence groups. The president of the chamber Núria de Gispert expelled them, and before leaving, one of them cried a loud ‘Long live Spain!’ and, in the fascist fashion, raised his right arm stiff in a nazi salute.

All parties except the People’s Party –which had invited the guests– and Ciutadans condemned the action as very serious and unacceptable, and the leader and MP of pro-independence Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, Oriol Junqueras, reminded during his intervention that actions such as nazi salutes and symbols are strictly banned in most European countries, “unlike in Spain”. The protagonist of the incident’s identity was later revealed [Vilaweb] to be Miguel Bosch Sánchez, a representative of the unionist Movimiento 12-0, who was sitting in the company of local councillors belonging to the PP and members of the Spanish far-right party Vox. Bosch said on Twitter that he is not a fascist and he was “just greeting the chamber” before leaving.

The tolerance to fascist inclinations in Spain

It is not the first incident of this kind to occur against local institutions. During the celebration of the September 11 –Catalonia’s national day– in the Catalan government delegation in Madrid, far-right groups violently interrupted the gathering by shouting and threatening the participants.